Leaders call for Key Bridge to be renamed for first Black congressman from Maryland
Maryland civil rights leaders have begun to mobilize around the idea of changing the names of two bridges in the state, including the recently collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Two resolutions calling for the name changes were introduced at Monday’s meeting of the Caucus of African American Leaders, a statewide consortium that includes local NAACP branches and the United Black Clergy of Maryland. In addition to the Key Bridge, which fell into the Patapsco River last month after a cargo carrier collided with one of its supports, the caucus is seeking to rename the Frederick C. Malkus
Bridge, which extends across the Choptank River to and from Cambridge in
Dorchester County.
Citing racist behavior and beliefs by both men, the resolutions passed unanimously and seek to rename the Key and Malkus bridges after two people who “made greater contributions to the betterment of Maryland.” The Key Bridge would be named for Congressman Parren J. Mitchell, the first Black Marylander elected to Congress. The Malkus Bridge would be named after civil rights leader Gloria Richardson, whose nonviolent protests combatted segregation on the Eastern Shore.
Caucus convener Carl Snowden said the resolutions were hand-delivered to Gov. Wes Moore’s office soon after the meeting.
“Of course, the naysay
ers will not be happy, and we anticipate opposition,” Snowden said. “However, we know we are on the right side of history and will eventually prevail.”
The governor’s office declined to comment on the caucus resolutions.
The new effort comes less than two weeks after the Francis Scott Key Bridge was struck by the Singapore-flagged vessel Dali, which had lost power traveling out of the Port of Baltimore. Six construction workers, whom the caucus has asked Moore to memorialize, were killed.
Work to clear the port’s main channel of debris is still, at best, weeks from completion. The Army Corps of Engineers said it hopes to restore the Port of Baltimore to “normal capacity” by the end of May — an effort President Joe Biden has stated and restated will be funded by the federal government.
Other Maryland landmarks named for controversial historical figures have face scrutiny in recent years.
In 2017, a statue of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney was removed from the grounds of the Maryland State House. Erected in 1872, the statue commemorated a judge primarily remembered for writing the majority opinion in the high court’s Dred Scott decision, which ruled Black people were not citizens of the United States.
Though former Gov. Larry Hogan initially wanted to keep the statue in Annapolis, he supported its removal after a violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 in which a woman was killed.
Then, in 2022, the last surviving Confederate monument on state grounds was removed from an Eastern Shore courtyard. Known as the “Talbot Boys Statue,” the monument stood outside the Talbot County Circuit Court in Easton in honor of local men who had joined the Confederacy and died in the Civil War.
The caucus supported the removal of both statues, referencing each in their statement Monday. The Key Bridge collapse, Snowden said, “allows Marylanders and taxpayers to remove names from bridges that do not honor all Marylanders.”
Key, best known for writing what became “The Star Spangled Banner” during the 1814 Battle of Baltimore, had what the National Park Service has called a “conflicted relationship with slavery.” Key enslaved six people and as an attorney represented several enslavers whose slaves had run away.
In general, Key referred to Black Americans as “a distinct and inferior race.”
The caucus hopes to remove Key’s name from the bridge and replace it with that of congressman Mitchell, a pioneer in the state. First elected in 1971 as a Democrat, Mitchell represented Maryland’s 7th Congressional District for 16 years and was one of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus. He died in 2007.
Key’s legacy will also be the subject of an upcoming discussion at his alma mater, St. John’s College, on April 17. It will take place in an auditorium named after him.
The Cambridge bridge named after Malkus, a former state delegate and senator who held public office for more than 50 years, was opened in 1987 and replaced another structure.
In its resolution, the caucus said Malkus considered civil rights legislation “un-American.” According to a 2020 op-ed by former state official Patrick Hornberger, the longtime politician also fought to maintain segregation in Dorchester County schools and hoped to preserve Maryland’s laws against interracial marriage.
Malkus’ family has publicly dismissed Hornberger’s account as subjective.
In addition to the resolutions, Snowden and other civil rights leaders met Monday with Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, to discuss the bridges.